This invention concerns a disk device having a disk tray with a depression into which a disk for recording and/or playback is inserted and by which said disk is loaded into the device main body, and a guide member provided on said disk device for holding said disk in position on said disk tray.
Long known as disk devices for CD, DVD, and other optical disk drives, etc. are disk devices in which an optical disk, which is an information recording medium, is inserted into a depression in a disk tray placed approximately horizontally, and said optical disk is loaded by accommodating the disk tray inside the device main body. With such a disk device, it suffices merely to place the optical disk in the disk tray and load such disk inside the device main body, and to place in the disk tray optical disks of different diameters, such as 8 cm and 12 cm, thereby making it possible to handle with a single disk device various optical disks of different diameters.
The aforesaid disk device, besides being used in the horizontal orientation, in which the disk tray is horizontal, is also sometimes used in the vertical orientation, in which the disk tray is vertical. If the disk device is oriented vertically, it is not possible, just by inserting an optical disk into the depression, to hold the optical disk in the disk tray. Therefore, as disclosed in Japanese unexamined patent H6-251479 [1994], a disk device has been proposed that has a disk tray equipped with claws for holding the optical disk loosely clamped against the external circumference of the depression from outside its surface.
In such a prior art disk device, if used in the vertical orientation, there is the problem that the vertical orientation sometimes causes the disk mounting surface of the disk tray to be on the opposite side from the user""s favored hand, complicating the mounting of said disk. Specifically, when a right-handed user tries to remove the disk from the disk accommodation case with his right hand and mount said disk from the right side of the disk tray, he must twist his wrist, and mounting the disk becomes difficult, which invites mounting failure. On the other hand, when a right-handed user tries to remove the disk from the disk accommodation case with his right hand, transfer said disk to his left hand, then mount it, the possibility of a mounting failure is reduced, but mounting with one""s unaccustomed hand takes more time and makes the mounting operation more troublesome.
Moreover, particularly when used in the vertical orientation, there is the problem that the disk must be accurately inserted in the narrow space between the claws and the disk tray, which makes mounting failure even more likely.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a disk device and guide member that make the disk mounting operation easy.
In one embodiment, there is provided a disk device that has a disk tray having a circular depression into which a disk is inserted and by which said disk is loaded into a device main body, and is characterized in that claws that can support part of the external circumference of the disk are provided on the external circumference of the depression, and a guide member that guides the disk between the depression and the claws is removably attached to the disk tray. In accordance therewith, when a disk is to be mounted into the disk device in the vertical orientation, said disk can be automatically guided between the depression and the claws by moving the disk along the guide member. This eliminates the inconvenience of disk mounting caused by the vertical orientation of the disk device and facilitates the operation of mounting the disk into the disk tray. In addition, because the guide member is detachable, it can be removed if it is to be used in horizontal orientation, in which case the operation of mounting a disk is made easy regardless of the orientation of the disk device.
In a second embodiment, there is provided a disk tray having a depression into which a disk is inserted and, on the external circumference of the depression, claws that can support part of the external circumference of the disk, and a guide member having a guide surface that is continuous with the disk-facing disk support surface of said claws for guiding the disk between the depression and the claws, said guide member being formed detachably with respect to said disk tray. It is preferable that the guide member be constructed so as to grasp the claws of the disk tray from both sides. It is also preferable if the guide member is constructed so as to be detachable on the claws of the disk tray, so there will be no need for any special manufacturing or processing to attach and detach the guide member to and from the disk device. Thus it becomes possible to easily apply the guide member to any general-purpose disk device for guiding and holding a disk used therewith.